Obama focuses the tax increases in his 2013 budget on
corporations and the top 2 percent of individual taxpayers. The
result in the center’s study stems from the fact that taxpayers
in all income brackets own parts of corporations.

“There are enough corporate tax increases in the
president’s plan to have a measurable impact on the
distribution,” said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the
center, which is frequently cited by members of both parties for
its work.

Most of the additional tax burden imposed by Obama’s budget
plan would fall upon the highest-earning taxpayers.

Compared with current tax policy, under Obama’s budget
proposal, 98.4 percent of people earning more than $1 million
would see their taxes increase next year by an average of
$184,504.

Tax Impact

In contrast, 31.6 percent of U.S. households earning
between $50,000 and $75,000 a year would see an average tax
increase of $92. In that same income group, 16.8 percent of
households would have a tax cut averaging $382.

The report reflects a modeling assumption about corporate
taxes, and the administration’s budget doesn’t raise taxes on
any family making less than $250,000, said Amy Brundage, a White
House spokeswoman.

“What it does do is close a series of wasteful and
unaffordable corporate tax subsidies, which include, for
example, ending the expensive tax subsidies for oil and gas
production and incentives to companies to ship jobs overseas,”
she said in an e-mail.

Obama’s budget would raise marginal tax rates to a maximum
of 39.6 percent, up from 35 percent. High-income taxpayers would
also face higher rates on investment income and limits on
deductions.

2009 Stimulus

For low-income and middle-income taxpayers, Obama would
extend policies from the 2009 stimulus law that expanded tax
credits for parents and college tuition. The budget also would
extend expiring income tax cuts for most taxpayers.

The budget would impose restrictions on multinational
corporations’ ability to defer U.S. taxes on income earned
outside the country. Oil and gas companies would lose several
breaks.

“The notion that if, for example, you cut subsidies for
Exxon, it will increase the taxes that a middle-class family has
to pay is simply false,” Brundage said.

Economists debate how the burden of the corporate tax is
distributed between labor and capital.